The series revolves around the fictional college experiences of the title character, Felicity Porter (portrayed by Keri Russell), as she attends the "University of New York" (based on New York University), across the country from her home in Palo Alto, California. The show ran for four seasons from September 29, 1998 and ended on May 22, 2002, with each season corresponding to the traditional American university divisions of freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years.

In 2007, Felicity was one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-Time."[1]AOL TV named Felicity one of the "Best School Shows of All Time."[2] In June 2010, Entertainment Weekly named Felicity Porter one of the "100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years".[3]

The series opens at Felicity's high school graduation, where she asks Ben Covington, a classmate on whom she has a crush to sign her yearbook. Moved by his comment that she wished they had gotten to know each other further; she changes her education plans completely, deciding to follow Ben to New York rather than attend Stanford University as a pre-med student. Felicity's overbearing parents, concerned about Felicity's seemingly rash decision, come to New York to try to persuade her to return home and "get back on track". Felicity has second thoughts about her decision, but soon realizes that she came not only to follow Ben, but to discover her true inner self.

While Felicity works to sort out her emotions, she continues the basic motions of student life and moves into her dorm. There, she meets the resident advisor Noel Crane. Eventually, romance ensues, and the relationships among Felicity, Ben, and Noel form the basic dramatic conflicts in the show throughout the series.

A number of other characters appear and play large roles in Felicity's life. Her roommate for the first two years is Meghan Rotundi, a gothWiccan who occasionally "casts spells" on Felicity and others. Julie Emrick is one of Felicity's best friends, as is Elena Tyler, who often takes classes with Felicity. Felicity also has male friends, including Sean Blumberg, who is always trying to produce new off-kilter inventions, and Javier Clemente Quintata, who manages the coffee house Dean & DeLuca, where Felicity works for most of her college career.

A recurring episode opener of the show is a stark camera shot of Felicity sitting in a dormitory room or apartment holding a tape recorder, recalling events in order to make a cassette tape to send to an old friend named Sally Reardon (voiced by Janeane Garofalo). This occasionally provides a method for Felicity to narrate an entire episode. At the end of episodes like this, Felicity is often shown to be listening to a tape that Sally has sent in reply.

Felicity was filmed in part in New York City, and is set at the fictional University of New York (UNY), based on New York University (NYU). Like NYU, UNY is located in Greenwich Village near Washington Square Park, and the school is an important part of the show. Although like other universities, NYU normally welcomes being mentioned in film or on television as free product placement, the university refused permission for the show to use its name, stating that "[t]he negatives kind of outweighed the positives."[4]

In 1999, a publicly hyped young writer for the show, Riley Weston, was disclosed as a fraud for claiming to be much younger than she truly was. At the age of 32, she began marketing herself to television studios as a recent high school graduate, passing off her husband as her older brother. She was soon hired by the WB Network as a writer for Felicity.[5] Hailed as a child prodigy and "wunderkind",[6] she was featured on Entertainment Weekly's October 1998 list of the "100 Most Creative People in Entertainment", which described her as an up-and-coming 19-year-old. Shortly thereafter, she was offered a six-figure screenwriting deal with Disney.[7] Her real identity and age were exposed after a Felicity producer checked her social security number. Soon afterward, her contract with WB expired and was not renewed, and her deal with Disney fell through.[citation needed]

In the summer of 1999, after filming the first season,[8]Felicity star Russell—known for what The New York Times described as "[t]hat glorious head of voluminous golden backlit hair"[9]—sent the show's producers a photo wearing a short-haired wig. They panicked before learning that it was a joke but then suggested to the actress that a new hairstyle would be appropriate.[8] After being shifted from Tuesday nights at 9:00 PM Eastern to Sunday nights at 8:00 PM Eastern (WB's weakest night) for the 1999–2000 season, the ratings for Felicity declined immediately. This decline was before the hair-style change, but the later hair-style change became conflated by some of the public and by some of the popular press[9] and network executives with this earlier event and thus incorrectly blamed the earlier ratings drop partly on the later new hairstyle. After the negative reaction Russell rejected wearing extensions or a wig while her hair grew back. Although storytelling and time-slot changes had already created a ratings decline, a network executive said WB actors' future hair changes would "be given more thought at the network than it previously would have".[8] In 2010, TV Guide Network listed the hairstyle change at No. 19 on their list of "25 Biggest TV Blunders," with several commentators arguing that it was the reason that the ratings of the show dropped.[10]

The haircut incident went on to become a popular culture reference within other television shows, both comedic and dramatic. In the 30 Rock episode "The Bubble," Jenna discusses how to get her hair cut and says, "But if I make the wrong choice, I could end up like Keri Russell, Felicity, season 2." When a girl cuts off her hair due to supernatural forces in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Where the Wild Things Are", the character Xander remarks, "People are going all Felicity with their hair", while in the One Tree Hill episode "The Desperate Kingdom of Love", when Lucas walks up to Keith at the beach, his uncle says, "Nice job, Felicity", referring to his new shorter haircut. Teen-aged Claire of the drama series Six Feet Under tells her mother that she wants to cut off all her hair like Felicity, to which her mother replies, "Do I know her?"—Claire replies sarcastically, "Yeah, she came over for dinner once." In the Sabrina the Teenage Witch episode "Making the Grade", animosity over an exposé she had written prompts Sabrina to ask, "[W]hy is everyone looking at me like I'm the girl who told Felicity to cut her hair?" In the Gilmore Girls episode "Here Comes the Son", the character Paris, debating whether to follow her boyfriend to Princeton instead of going to Harvard, says, "Suddenly, I'm Felicity without the hair issues." In the Happy Endings episode "The Code War", Max perms Dave's hair while the latter is sleeping. Upon seeing his new do, Penny quips, "You look like Keri Russell after she ruined Felicity."[11] In the Family Guy episode "Friends Without Benefits", Chris declares he went through a rough time when Felicity cut her hair, as he used to have that same brown and curly haircut.

In a commentary track on the final episode of Disney/Buena Vista's original Freshman Year Collection DVD release ("Felicity Was Here"), co-creator Matt Reeves said the pilot and season finale contained the same music as when the show originally aired, but some other episodes contained changes. "One of the sad things about going into syndication is that certain rights that we were able to get in the first year we weren't able to get," Reeves said. "In the pilot and in this episode we have all the original music as it appeared on the series."[citation needed]

On February 9, 2012, it was announced that Lionsgate Home Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series and planned on re-releasing it. Seasons 1 and 2 were re-released on May 1, 2012 and do not contain any extras, subtitles, or other languages besides English.[24][25][26] Seasons 3 and 4 were re-released on May 7, 2013.[27]